Historic archive of Desert Island Discs on R4 podcasts

[Nick Armstrong]

I am just downloading 500+ podcasts, as I have just noticed that on the R4 website, all (or virtually all) editions of DID are available indefinitely. Good stuff for long journeys

[mercia]

nice to see that Susana Walton chose some Liszt

[Nick Armstrong]

nice to see that Susana Walton chose some Liszt

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I checked just to make sure I was corrected in my assertion that Sir Roger Norrington chose only his own recordings, and I was er... wrong. , though for anything he had recorded at the time, he did select his own. (Someone has to.)

[mercia]

chose only ........ own recordings

isn't that what Elisabeth Schwarzkopf famously did?

[antongould]

I believe she did!

[Lateralthinking1]

I would like to know more about the history to this change. For a very long time, Desert Island Discs was one of the few programmes that was not available on the I-Player. My understanding was that the wife of Roy Plomley had refused to give authorisation. Does anyone know what has happened since to alter that situation and now to provide programmes from the past but only going back to 1997?

[french frank]

I would like to know more about the history to this change. For a very long time, Desert Island Discs was one of the few programmes that was not available on the I-Player. My understanding was that the wife of Roy Plomley had refused to give authorisation. Does anyone know what has happened since to alter that situation and now to provide programmes from the past but only going back to 1997?

They came to an agreement.

Announced on the R4 blog some while back.

[Lateralthinking1]

Interesting. Thank you for that frenchfrank. Comment 1 on that page is a good idea - "How about adding a Spotify playlist for old programmes which have dropped off the iplayer so that we can at least listen to the musical choices?"

[Roslynmuse]

I always thought the iPlayer restriction was due to copyright on the excerpted recordings.

Any significance to the 1997 cut-off?

[Norfolk Born]

I believe she did!

I've just checked to confirm what I thought - it was only 7 out of 8. The odd one out was Karajan conducting the prelude to Der Rosenkavalier. I think Walter Legge was also prominently associated with her choice of recordings.
PS/edit: This morning's edition on Radio 4 at 11.15 features Baldrick aka Tony Robinson.

[salymap]

And dear old Malcolm Arnold didn't choose one of his own works. Quite a mixture though. Arthur Bliss appeared twice, remember one of them. Nice to see names fromthe 50s and 60s, used to listen but don't now.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I've just checked to confirm what I thought - it was only 7 out of 8. The odd one out was Karajan conducting the prelude to Der Rosenkavalier. I think Walter Legge was also prominently associated with her choice of recordings.

But surely that was one of ES's recordings, though obviously she wasn't singing during the prelude?

[Nick Armstrong]

But surely that was one of ES's recordings, though obviously she wasn't singing during the prelude?

Quite...

But it was because they had explained the point of the programme wrongly to her, or her 'people' got it wrong, or she misunderstood, I gather: she had chosen them on the basis she was under the impression that the programme called for her to choose her 8 favourite recordings from her career.

For a busy and much-recorded artist, and with the perils of translation even for a fluent English speaker like ES, I find this explanation perfectly convincing.

[vinteuil]

thank you Caliban, for explaining - to those who were unaware - that this was a case of misunderstanding rather than egotism. This really is a canard that shd have been consumed ( à l'orange anyone? ) years ago - but whch still bubbles up de temps à autre...